


What You've Become

by xxxbookaholic



Series: The Line Between Past And Present (Mastermind Shuichi Universe) [2]
Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different Mastermind (Dangan Ronpa), Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Fluff, Identity Issues, M/M, Mastermind Saihara Shuichi, Post-Canon, Pre-Game Personalities (New Dangan Ronpa V3), Therapy, but only kind of, but they do state that they love each other, it was all vr, kind of, recovering, so you know, they arent really in a relationship in the end, virtual simulator au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27357388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxxbookaholic/pseuds/xxxbookaholic
Summary: “Being around everyone like that was weird. They were all suffering in their own way,” he tapped his finger on his chair. “It makes me wonder why all of them auditioned for such a killing game in the first place.”“Well, why did you audition?” Akio asked, looking up from his notepad.Shuichi met his gaze under his hat, toeing the floor with his foot. “To get away.”“What were you trying to get away from?”“Reality.”“What was wrong with the reality you were already in?”Shuichi couldn’t answer that question. He just looked back down at the ground and waited for the next question.
Relationships: Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi, Saihara Shuichi & Everyone
Series: The Line Between Past And Present (Mastermind Shuichi Universe) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1998058
Comments: 1
Kudos: 113
Collections: Quality Fics





	What You've Become

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction is inspired by Arcade by Duncan Laurence! It takes place after What It Means To Be The Mastermind. You don't necessarily have to read it to understand, but I heavily recommend it.  
> There will be death mentioned, obviously! It isn't too graphic, but it's kind of implied to be. Nightmares and stuff, you know. It's canon-typical.

When Shuichi woke up from the simulation, he wasn’t tired, relieved, or energized. Rather, he was cold; disappointed in himself and what he’d created.  
He’d been aware that it was a simulation. Of course, he was; it was his game after all. That was what he’d thought in the beginning, at least. Pretty soon, though, he realized that he could never have control over everything. He couldn’t control his peers, he couldn’t control Danganronpa’s viewers, and he couldn’t control another person’s fate.  
His legs and arms ached, his eyes were already beginning to burn from the blaring hospital lights, but nevertheless, he sat up without hesitation, staring at the machine that was supposed to monitor his heart rate.  
He tried to will a flatline. (It seemed like he couldn’t control his own fate, either.)   
Shuichi reached over and pressed the button that sat next to his bed. Just as quickly as the sound began to blare, a single doctor came in, glasses falling off her nose and jacket just a little too tight for her hips.  
“You’re up,” she stated matter-of-factly, as if he wasn’t aware of the general lack of blood lustful bears and locked classroom doors. He nodded in agreement, glancing down at his hands.  
She took a few moments to examine him, jotted down a few notes, and then sat down in a rolling chair, fingers hovering over a keyboard. “How are you feeling?” She started out easily.  
Shuichi wished he had his hat with him. “I’m fine.”  
“Do you know where you are? Who you are?”  
“I’m Shuichi Saihara, mastermind of Danganronpa season 53. I am currently in a hospital, checked in for rehab after the events of the killing game,” he couldn’t remember the name of the hospital he was in. It didn’t really matter, anyways. Even if he were to go home, nobody would be there waiting for him.  
The doctor pressed a few keys. “I’m Niko and I’ll be your main doctor. I will handle checkups and any injuries. We have a psychiatrist here; I’m sure you’ve met him. He will come and talk to you about starting therapy in a few days.   
“You seem to be the least likely to harm yourself or anyone else, as you are completely self-aware.” She glanced up from her computer for a moment, eyes cold and almost disapproving. (He’d seen that look in people’s eyes quite often since auditioning for Danganronpa.) “Some of your classmates weren’t that lucky.”  
Shuichi didn’t say anything else, and neither did she. Niko stayed for a little while longer, checking vitals and making sure he knew where everything was. Then, she hurried out of the room, most likely on her way to check on everyone else.  
He didn’t ask how the others were doing, and he didn’t plan to. It would probably be best to avoid them.  
They’d stay for a while, rehabbing and being monitored for any unusual behavior (unusual for people who had never participated in a killing game, that is), and then they’d go home to their families to start a new, moderately safe life.  
And Shuichi would stay here, wondering what he could have done better to make season fifty-three a hit.  
◆:*:◇:*:◆:*:◇:*:◆  
Niko came back the next day, and the next, and then the day after that, an old (but definitely not new) face came to visit in her place.  
His psychiatrist and therapist from middle school had chosen to work with Danganronpa survivors sometime around Shuichi’s seventh grade year. Not having to adapt to a whole new person seemed to be both a blessing and a curse.  
Akio flipped to a new page in his notebook and then settled on a loveseat next to Shuichi’s bed, not taking his eyes off of the patient for a second. “So, how are you doing today?”  
Shuichi pulled his hat down over his eyes. The gesture felt almost foreign; granted, every step he took felt foreign when he had become so used to virtual reality. “Fine.”  
“What would you like to talk about first?” Akio had always been like this. Passive, allowing his patients to take the lead.   
Shuichi fisted the blankets he was under. “How were this season’s reviews?”  
The therapist’s face never changed. “We’re not allowed to disclose that kind of information this early into your rehabbing. It can be detrimental to a person’s health.”  
Shuichi knew that. He knew all of this; it had been in the paperwork he’d filled, the lawyer and therapist’s warnings, the audition form. He knew and yet he still asked, as if he was expecting the answer to be different.   
“This season was a mess,” Shuichi grumbled, glancing towards his heart monitor. “I made a lot of mistakes.”  
Akio wrote something indecipherable in his notepad, nodding along.   
“How have you been coping? Any nightmares, flashbacks, or panic attacks?”  
Shuichi shook his head, still not looking away from the bane of his existence. The machines that kept his blood pumping, his brain moving, his eyes open, when all he wanted was for all of this to stop. “No. I’ve dreamt of things that happened in the simulation, but they don’t scare me.”   
His therapist hummed. “That’s common for those forced to play the role of blackened or mastermind to say.”  
“I wasn’t forced.”  
“Of course you weren’t,” his therapist mended. “But are you sure you’re still happy with your decision?”  
Yes, Shuichi wanted to say. He wanted to but he couldn’t, because every time he opened his mouth, all he could think of was the letters of complaints, the crossed-out scripts, the inked-out monitors.  
Trustworthy, their fan-favorite antagonist had scribbled under the picture of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, wearing the skin of a detective and using the heart of a liar.   
Shuichi had laughed when he first saw it; ironic, he’d thought to himself. Now all he could feel was regret towards his friend; deceived and played until the very end.  
Akio asked him a few questions and he answered as shortly as he could, ignoring the ones that he couldn’t understand. After their session, the therapist left, their notepad full of scribbles.  
Shuichi stared at the ceiling of the hospital but didn’t sleep. Instead, he thought about pink x’s and audition tapes.  
◆:*:◇:*:◆:*:◇:*:◆  
The first time he saw one of his classmates couldn’t even count as an interaction.  
Shuichi had been sitting up in bed, eating a bowl of mush and staring at a list of exercises that his doctor had assigned him, when Rantaro stopped right by his door.  
Rantaro looked at him almost pitifully, eyes clouded over and fists stuffed into his pockets. “You know, Saihara,” he began, not losing eye contact for a second. “Kaede and I don’t blame you.”  
Shuichi didn’t respond to that. He just stared at his bowl of food, waiting restlessly for Rantaro to finally give up and walk away.   
“We were all like that once, you know? We all took it too far.” Rantaro looked away. “The only thing that matters is if we regret it.” And with that he left, eyes never straying from his destination, wherever that may be.  
Easy for you to say, Shuichi thought, no longer interested in his lunch, when you don’t regret it, either.  
(Did he?)  
◆:*:◇:*:◆:*:◇:*:◆  
His therapist brought it up in conversation, once.  
“The rest of this season’s participants are doing group therapy,” Akio mentioned off-handedly, never tearing his eyes away from the notes he was writing. “Maybe you should join them.”  
“I don’t want to,” Shuichi said simply. Akio didn’t argue; they continued to a different topic, one with less mention of people he wished he could forget.  
For who was he to heal along with everyone else? They were the puppets and he was the puppet master, they were the paint brush and he was the artist.  
And most importantly; how could he pretend to wish for a better life, fake tears of regret and disdain, when all he could think in the silence of his room was what could have been done to make his own classmate’s deaths just a little more gruesome?  
◆:*:◇:*:◆:*:◇:*:◆  
Shuichi scanned his new list of exercises; it had been given to him that morning, full of things that were absolutely mandatory.  
For the most part, they were normal things; practicing mindfulness, taking his pills, doing a few stretches.  
There was one thing on the list, though, that he found himself dreading. Dinner will no longer be served to you in your room. Everything will be held in the dining hall. Along with the note was directions to where the dining hall was, but he already knew.  
He’d toured this place, before agreeing to be apart of Danganronpa season fifty-three.   
He hadn’t been made aware of this new routine, though.  
◆:*:◇:*:◆:*:◇:*:◆  
Shuichi walked down the hospital corridors, slippers not making a sound on the ugly tiles. He twisted and turned down hallways. There were photographs and paintings along every wall, almost taunting him; photos of clear skies, past Danganronpa participants (all of which he recognized), and dandelion fields.  
The dining hall entrance didn’t even have a door; it was just a hole in a wall, shaped to look like a door could fit in it. Everything looked old, and yet there were no stray nails, no loose screws.   
It felt fake; like the doll houses he had as a child.  
This whole place feels like a dollhouse.  
A few people glanced up when he entered, but for the most part, everyone carried on with their business.   
Shuichi grabbed a (styrofoam) tray and piled as little food as he could, hoping that the less he got, the less time he’d have to spend with everyone else. All he grabbed from the utensils table was a fork, gray and plastic, and then he sat down at the table closest to him.  
Kaede looked up from her tray. She had waved at him when he entered, and now she was smiling. It was a tired smile, dripping with exhaustion and exasperation. Nothing like how she was in the killing game, energetic and cheerful.  
It was still a smile nonetheless, though, and it made Shuichi sick in the stomach.  
“How’s it going?” She asked inbetween chewing.   
Shuichi stabbed his fork into a strawberry and brought it up to his mouth, eyes hidden under the brim of the hat he was oh-so-grateful to have back. “I’m doing fine,” he said, “you?”  
Even with the things they’d gone through, Kaede still seemed as warm and welcoming as she used to be. (He was torn between wanting to rely on her, wanting her to rely on him, and wanting her to leave him alone.) “It’s going as good as it can be in our situation,” she said, her voice taking on a joking lilt.  
“I guess so.”  
They were silent again, and this time, neither of them broke that.  
Shuichi tossed his half-empty tray into the trash and made his way out.  
He wasn’t guilty. He didn’t regret the things he did.  
When he looked at Kaede, he didn’t see her lifeless body, dangling directly above a super-sized piano.  
◆:*:◇:*:◆:*:◇:*:◆  
“Wow, mister detective!” A voice sing-songed, the sound getting closer and closer with every second. Shuichi tilted his head to see Kokichi already standing beside him, arms draped over the sill, head hanging out the now opened window. “Are you planning on jumping?” He sounded almost scandalized. “You know, I think they got rid of all dangerous objects for a reason.”  
“I’m not jumping,” Shuichi said. He wanted to look away; he wanted to, he had to, but he didn’t.  
Kokichi’s voice and demeanor was as childish and dramatic as it had been in the killing game, but now there was a coldness in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, as if he’d completely given up on hiding how tired he truly was. It was an odd look for him; a weird cross between who he used to be and who he’d become. It made Shuichi’s head hurt, so this time, he did look away.  
“Liar! I hate liars!” Kokichi accused, tears pricking at his eyes. “How could you, Shumai? I thought you liked me enough to try and spare my feelings!”  
“Why does it matter to you whether I like you or not? Whether I spare your feelings or not?” Shuichi asked, subconsciously clenching his hand into a fist. “You died to end the killing game, right? I’m the mastermind, so you hate me now.”  
Kokichi laughed, his voice a song in the exhaustingly tense atmosphere of the hospital. “You got me! Wow, it’s true what they say,” Shuichi glanced over to see his expression completely blank, a direct contrast to his cheery voice. “Masterminds really are all-knowing.” And with that, he turned around, skipping away from the window.  
Shuichi turned back to the window, leaning his head out like Kokichi had done. It didn’t feel too bad.  
He didn’t stay out for very long after that. A nurse found him staring at the dark abyss below and led him back to his hospital room, her voice soft and delicate, like he was a piece of glass.  
Maybe all of the other participants were fragile, he thought as he stared up at his ceiling, but he, the mastermind, most certainly was not.  
(But if he wasn’t fragile, then why did his heart and brain feel like they were already chipped?)  
◆:*:◇:*:◆:*:◇:*:◆  
“How would you describe your feelings about the killing game now? Have they changed since auditioning for Danganronpa?”  
Shuichi stared at the painting hanging on his room’s wall; a copy of The Scream. “No.”  
After a few seconds, he added, “I don’t feel different. Except for sometimes, when I wonder where my life went so wrong.”  
◆:*:◇:*:◆:*:◇:*:◆  
“Shumai!” Kokichi called from one side of the room. There was a group of seats, all sitting in a circle in the center of the room.   
As he sat down next to Kokichi, Shuichi wondered again why he agreed to this. It wasn’t like his opinion on group therapy had changed; he still thought it was wrong for him to participate with everyone else, still thought it wouldn’t work for him. And yet here he was, pulling his hat even farther down onto his eyes and waiting patiently for his classmates to start filling the room.  
Rantaro smiled at him, and Kaede waved, but Shuichi didn’t reciprocate the gestures. Instead, he sunk deeper into his seat and tried to will the clock to move quicker.   
“I’m happy you’re here with us,” the therapist sitting at the end of the circle said, smiling politely. Shuichi nodded at her. He knew her, too; he knew all of the staff, even if just because of one meeting. He’d met them all.  
He knew, and yet they still felt eerily unfamiliar, like he had never met them in his life.  
The group therapy came and went rather quickly, with the only highlight being when they talked about nightmares and intrusive thoughts.  
“I keep dreaming about you all dying in various ways,” Shuichi said, staring down at his shoes. “The executions and murders swap. One second Kaede is getting boiled in a pot, the other second Angie is getting crushed by a hydraulic press.” He paused for a moment, and then admitted, “and then I’m dead, too; usually by hanging or being crushed.”  
He didn’t gauge their reactions; just continued to stare at his shoes blankly, as if what he was saying was perfectly normal.  
(It was, for the mastermind of a killing game.)  
◆:*:◇:*:◆:*:◇:*:◆  
“How did the group therapy go?”  
“It was weird,” Shuichi began. During the past few weeks, he’d come to trust Akio. They weren’t friends; far from it, actually. He was the closest to a friend Shuichi had, though, so he’d take what he could get. “Being around everyone like that, I mean. They were all suffering in their own way,” he tapped his finger on his chair. “It makes me wonder why all of them auditioned for such a killing game in the first place.”  
“Well, why did you audition?” Akio asked, looking up from his notepad.  
Shuichi met his gaze under his hat, toeing the floor with his foot. “To get away.”  
“What were you trying to get away from?”  
“Reality.”  
“What was wrong with the reality you were already in?”  
Shuichi couldn’t answer that question. He just looked back down at the ground and waited for the next question.  
◆:*:◇:*:◆:*:◇:*:◆  
Shuichi poked at his scrambled egg with a fork. He already regretted getting so much food; all he’d eaten was a piece of toast, and it already felt like too much. He hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep that night, plagued by (nightmares, a part of his brain supplied.) dreams, so he wasn’t in the biggest mood to be around people. If that’s the truth, though, then why am I sitting in Ouma’s hospital room, listening to him chatter?  
“Geez, Shumai, you look horrible,” Kokichi commented in between bites of a blueberry muffin.  
“I could say the same thing about you,” Shuichi said, his voice dripping with a mix between exhaustion and amusement. “You really need to start brushing your hair in the morning.”  
Kokichi gasped, scandalized, and brought a hand up to his chest. “How could you say that to me? I’ll have you know that I brush, curl, straighten, and wash my hair every morning! In that order! You’re too cruel. Now I understand why you were the mastermind.”  
Shuichi furrowed his eyebrows. “You don’t brush your hair after washing it?”  
“Oops! You’ve caught me. What’re you going to do, mister detective? Handcuff me? Bring me to jail against my will? Sue me?” He leaned even closer with every word, eyes twinkling. Shuichi looked down, his face burning.  
“No, of course not.” He paused, and then he pulled his hat down over his eyes, a nervous habit that he’d obtained from playing the role of the ultimate detective. (Was it really an act anymore?) “I could brush your hair, though.”  
Kokichi leaned back, his face blank, expression indecipherable. It almost looked like he was caught between choosing a mask, going back and forth between two different emotions. In that moment, Shuichi couldn’t help but think about the Kokichi before the killing game; they were so similar, and yet so different at the same time. Almost like direct opposites.  
The Ouma before the killing game hid behind the role of a shy, quiet student, defenseless and puny. When he got comfortable with Shuichi, however, he completely shifted. His smiles were brighter, he’d get excited over Danganronpa just as much as Shuichi did, and he would fantasize over being the protagonist of a killing game, solving mystery after mystery.  
Shuichi also couldn’t help the pang in his heart when he was reminded yet again that the Ouma he used to know was no longer in this world.  
“Would you actually brush my hair?” This Kokichi asked dumbly, his mask still painted a boring white.   
Shuichi fidgeted with the hem of his jacket. “If you want me to, then I’m not sure why I wouldn’t.”  
“Okay,” Kokichi breathed. In a flash, his mask changed, like he’d finally settled on an act. “Then brush my hair, Saihara-chan! But if you tug on my hair, I’ll have to kill you.”  
Shuichi laughed, “alright. Where’s your brush?”  
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Kokichi snickered, pointing at the drawer beside his bed. Shuichi pushed aside papers, glitter pens, and spare bandanas, grabbing the purple hair brush that hid in the very back. Clearly he really hasn’t been brushing his hair.  
“Turn around.”  
Kokichi complied, shifting his body so he was facing away from Shuichi, still eating his breakfast. Shuichi brought the brush up nervously to his hair, dragging it through the knots and trying his best to untangle the mess.   
“Hey, Shumai,” Kokichi said, not even flinching when Shuichi tugged the brush through a particularly knotted lock. “You have memories of what we were all like before the killing game, right?”  
“Somewhat,” he replied, not looking up from his task. “Some people, I only know from audition tapes and interviews. There were a few people that went to my school or neighboring schools.”  
“What was I like?”  
Shuichi stopped brushing his hair for a moment, pulling his hat even farther over his eyes, despite not having anybody to make eye contact with. He resumed untangling his hair when he began talking, though, the task giving him something to do with his hands.  
“Kind of the opposite. The Ouma before you,” he trailed off, considering saying ‘you’ but stopping himself. They weren’t the same people; it felt wrong to refer to them as such. “He seemed really quiet at first. He wasn’t bullied or anything, but you’d think he was, with how timid and weak he was. He was always squeaking in surprise, flinching, and jumping as if he didn’t know anybody besides himself was around. Eventually, that was what drove everyone away from him.  
“We were friends, actually. Always ended up in the same class, no matter what subjects we chose, so of course we ended up talking. It took a few months, but after a while, I got to see what he was really like. He acted kind of like you, actually. He would go on endless rants about his hyperfixations,” Shuichi left out the fact that most of his ‘hyperfixations’ were related to the very killing game that destroyed him, “and he’d stay up late texting me. We went shopping together, tried out new cafes together, made fun of popular celebrities together.”  
Shuichi hadn’t even realized he was crying until he already was, fresh tears running down his cheeks. Still, he never stopped brushing Kokichi’s hair. “He was my only friend once we got to high school.”  
Neither of them talked for a few minutes, after that. When Shuichi finally dropped the brush on the bed and backed away into his seat once more, Kokichi stayed still, hands gripping his blankets.   
“Do you miss him?”  
For the first time since beginning rehab, he didn’t hesitate before speaking the only truth he knew. “Yeah.”  
Kokichi didn’t say anything else about it. What he did do, however, was clasp their hands together, his eyes stuck to his now-empty plate.  
Shuichi wondered, as he squeezed Kokichi’s hand, if it was right for him to feel this way.  
◆:*:◇:*:◆:*:◇:*:◆  
Months passed. Shuichi continued to go to group therapy, began eating both lunch and breakfast in the dining hall, and tried his best to mend his relationship with his former classmates.  
Some of them were distant at first. Kaito seemed hesitant to talk to him, and when he did, he was careful, like Shuichi was breakable. Himiko was the same way; most of the time, she ignored him completely. It reminded him of who Yumeno used to be, avoiding questions that she didn’t know the answer to and yelling all-too-loudly when she did know the answer.   
Rantaro was by far the hardest to talk to, though. He always seemed like he knew more than he let on, like he understood a little too well. It put Shuichi on edge every time they spoke. Still, he tried to get along.  
Slowly but surely, he became closer to Kaede, as well. It was hard, when even he was confused about who he truly was. She made it easier, accepting him no matter what he confessed or admitted. The complete opposite of who she used to be, he thought, grimacing at the memory of the Akamatsu who used to be in the grade above him, holding each and every flaw over his head like she was playing with her pet cat.  
Talking to Kokichi was confusing. One second, he was feeling absolutely giddy. They’d play games of tag until they got too tired to stand, they’d hold each other until the nightmares faded into background noise, and they’d eat breakfast together in the morning, listening to the heavy squealing of the AC unit. The next second, he’d be wondering if it was truly Kokichi he’d come to love, or the person he used to be.  
Was he just using Kokichi? Was he really laughing at the joke he just told, or was he laughing about the joke he’d told two years ago, sitting under the stars and wishing for a world that was not their own? There was a tear where there should be glue, a flashback where there should be vivid scenery.   
He brought it up with Kokichi, once, when he got so guilty it felt unbearable. (Since when did masterminds feel guilty?)  
“Does it really matter?” Kokichi had replied. “Sometimes I wonder the same thing; do I really like you, or do I like the Ultimate Detective you pretended to be? Do I really enjoy your company, or am I just trying to replace a person that never existed in the first place?”  
Before Shuichi could speak, Kokichi grabbed his wrist and held it up to his own heart, eyes looking anywhere but the person in front of him. “When I ask myself that, though, I ask myself this; does it matter if I still love who you used to be? I may have loved the Ultimate Detective, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you now, too. I love you, and I love who you’ve become, no matter the things you’ve done in the past.”  
They were quiet for a moment, the only contact between the two being the steady beating under Shuichi’s hand. Kokichi was the one to break the silence, his voice just barely above a whisper, “so, do you love who I’ve become?”  
When Kokichi put it like that, the answer seemed obvious. “Yes.”  
Kokichi smiled, a direct contrast to the tears that were bubbling under his eyes. “Then you don’t have to worry.”  
He wasn’t completely right. There was always something to worry about, especially in a situation like theirs. But sitting there with the person he loved, leaning his head on his shoulder and being able to fully trust that yes, he’s right here in front of me, the worries didn’t seem quite as haunting.  
Shuichi smiled, and for the first time since beginning the killing game, he didn’t have to ask himself if it was genuine.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! I've really come to love this universe, and I want to write for it a lot in the future. I already have plans for prequels and sequels, so stay tuned for that. (You can bookmark/subscribe to the series if you want to stay up to date with it!) I want to write for other characters, as well, since as stated, everybody in the cast is suffering in their own way! 
> 
> If you liked the fanfiction, please leave a comment (and kudos). It keeps me writing, and is definitely very helpful (for any writer, really.)  
> My tumblr is xxxbookaholic. I post Danganronpa and A3 Actors content, so if you're interested in more (headcanons, random concepts, etc,.) then go check me out there! All of my fanfictions and drabbles are posted here on AO3, though.
> 
> Have a nice rest of your day/night.


End file.
